Not Applicable.
Not Applicable.
This invention relates most generally to the mobility needs of disabled persons and the lifting strains experienced by caregivers in nursing homes or other care facilities. More specifically, the device pertains to a wheelchair that a user may enter or depart from the back or any other direction in a horizontal plane; that does not require a caregiver to lift the user""s entire body during transfer on to or off the chair; and that reduces the number of necessary transfers on and off the chair during a twenty-four hour period by providing an integral toileting platform.
Wheeled chairs are well known and have generally been devised to increase the mobility of disabled persons. Many users, including hospital or nursing home patients, require the assistance of a caregiver in order to get into or out of a wheelchair.
Many injuries are suffered by users and caregivers alike when the chair user is being transferred from one chair or bed to another chair or bed. Often the caregiver must lift the patient""s entire body, or seek to drag or otherwise maneuver the patient""s body over a part of the chair, or across a gap between a bed and chair, or a chair and toilet seat. A spouse or paid caregiver may not have sufficient strength or endurance to repeatedly lift or position the chair user in the proper manner. Caregivers suffer muscle and skeletal injuries from repetitive lifting of patients in and out of beds, chairs, cars, etc. During a transfer, a patient can also be injured by being dropped, being scraped against a surface, or by being bruised. Injury and infection can also result from the patient not being moved often enough, especially for toileting purposes.
The need for assistance with transfers and a shortage of physically able caregivers can result in a patient not being transferred between locations often enough, and can significantly add to the emotional strain on family members who want or need to take care of a loved one.
Others have invented chairs that seek to benefit the user and the caregiving assistant during the transferring process.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,185,769 B1 (Larisey, Jr. et al, Feb. 13, 2001) and U.S. Pat. No. 6,154,899 (Brooke et al., Dec. 5, 2000) describe a resident transfer chair that movably adjusts between an upright chair position to a flat position, and thereby facilitates transfer of a user between a chair and a bed. The device speaks to benefiting both the user and caregiver, but does not speak to reducing the number of necessary transfers during a twenty-four hour period, and does not provide an integral toileting platform.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,086,085 (Larsson, Jul. 11, 2000) describes a wheeled platform with removable seat with armrests, that can be used for moving a seated user in or out of a car. The lower elongate trapezoidal frame of the chair allows the lower chair frame to slide underneath a car while delivering the upper chair seat platform on or near the car seat. Presumably, the user is then transferred from either the chair or car seat directly onto the other. The platform and seat may be removed from the chair frame and stored on the car seat. The disclosure for the invention does not mention any benefit to a caregiver, e.g., in eliminating the need to lift the person from the wheelchair seat onto the car seat or vice versa. The design of the chair does not allow the user to enter the seat from the back, to rotate 360 degrees around a vertical axis while seated in the chair, or to perform toileting activities while seated in the chair. The chair is longer than a standard sized wheelchair and would not be practical for use in a home environment, or in a standard sized bedroom or bathroom designed to accommodate a standard sized wheelchair.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,039,403 (Hargroder, Mar. 21, 2000) describes a shower/tub transfer chair that is designed to be used only in the shower/tub, and that can be easily disassembled for transport or storage. It does not speak to any other benefit to the user or caregiver.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,596,775 (DiMatteo, et al., Jan. 28, 1997) describes a patient transfer device that requires substantial modifications to an existing wheelchair and/or bed, and relies upon a transfer sheet and attendants. Although the disclosure speaks to benefiting the caregiver and patient, the device does not eliminate the number of transfers that must be made for toileting during a twenty-four hour period, and is not practical for short term use in a home environment.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,438,722 (Jayamanne, Aug. 8, 1995) describes a wheelchair that devises to help the caregiver avoid lifting the total body weight of the patient when moving a patient into or out of a hospital bed. The chair is designed to be mobilized only by the caregiver, and provides wheels and armrests that are specially sized and located to allow the chair seat to abut flush against a hospital bed. The chair can be arranged into a horizontal alignment, belted to a hospital bed, and the patient then transferred onto the chair while remaining in a horizontal position during the transfer. The transfer method does not eliminate the necessity of sliding the patient across a horizontal surface and scraping or bruising the patient thereby, or reduce the number of transfers necessary. The chair does not provide means to allow the patient to control his or her mobility.
What would be useful is a standard sized wheel chair that maximizes the independence, health, and safety of both the user and the caregiver(s). What would be useful is a chair that has a removable back and set of armrests thereby providing a seating platform with an unobstructed perimeter to allow the patient to be conveniently moved into or out of the chair from any direction in the horizontal plane. This would reduce the risk of injury presented to both the patient and the caregiver during transfers that would otherwise necessitate ineffective and dangerous positioning of the chair, patient and caregiver during the transfer.
What would also be useful is a standard sized wheel chair whose base frame would allow the chair to back-in over a bed and deliver or receive the patient thereto while minimizing the distance the patent must be rolled, carried, dragged or otherwise manipulated to effect the transfer, and thereby reducing the risk of injury to the caregiver and patient.
What would also be useful is a standard sized wheelchair that reduces the number of transfers that must be performed during a twenty-four hour period. What would be useful is a wheelchair that can back over a pre-exiting toilet, and that provides a built-in toileting platform and partially removable seating platform to conveniently allow the seated user to use the pre-existing toilet while remaining seated in the wheelchair, thus reducing the number of transfers that must be performed during a twenty-four hour period.